Her Last Breath

by Tracy Buchanan

  ‘Promise?’ Autumn asked.

  Estelle squeezed her eyes shut. ‘Promise. Take care.’ Then she put the phone down, staying still and quiet for a few moments as she thought of Autumn, of her kind green eyes, her warm arms.

  Estelle snapped herself out of it, looking at Aiden’s number. Emotions whirled inside as she remembered the time she broke things off with him. It had been just after the secretive scan Autumn arranged for her to have. She’d had to call in a favour with an old nurse friend. But it had confirmed she was indeed pregnant, too late to do anything but have the child. Estelle had lied, told Aiden she didn’t love him, pushed him away. In the weeks that followed, she’d had to watch him angrily go from one girl to the next before being packed off by Autumn and Max to a boarding school to try to focus his mind on his studies. He’d never got on at the local school, getting in the odd fight, missing lessons. But Estelle also suspected part of the reason his parents wanted him away from Lillysands was so he wasn’t touched by any scandal that might occur when Estelle had her baby. So there he was, completely in the dark about his child growing within Estelle.

  But now, fifteen years later, he was going to find out.

  Estelle took a deep breath and dialled his number, keeping her breath held while it rang and rang. Then it abruptly cut off. She tried it again but the same happened. ‘Damn it.’ She thought about texting him. But it would seem weird, after all these years, and she certainly couldn’t tell him about the child she gave up in a text.

  Estelle closed her eyes, exhausted from it all. Then she heard the front door click open. She sat up straight, heart thumping.

  How would she explain all this to Seb?

  Tell him the truth. Something she should have done a long time ago.

  He appeared at the door to the kitchen, face hard. ‘How did it go?’

  ‘Sit down,’ she said, gesturing to the stool next to her. ‘I have something to tell you.’

  ‘Something else?’

  ‘Yes, something else,’ she said with a sigh.

  When he walked over, she could smell beer on his breath. He’d clearly popped to the pub. That didn’t bode well. Seb could get angry when he was drunk lately. He’d never hurt Estelle, but he liked to shout, to rant. That’s what the injury had done to him, made him feel like a caged animal. She remembered the phone call she’d got from his trainer after Seb had been rushed to hospital in agony during a training session three months before. There had been a collision with another boat and he’d seriously damaged his leg as a result. He’d even seen the muscle hanging from the bone. After an operation, it was a waiting game, one that was looking increasingly worrying with each consultation, delaying his return to practice more and more, the bone too weak.

  Of course, Estelle understood how demoralising it must be. But other times she found his attitude towards her, the person trying her best to help and support him, hard to tolerate.

  ‘What is it?’ he asked roughly.

  ‘I had a baby fifteen years ago.’ There. Better done quick, like a plaster being pulled off.

  His eyes widened with shock. ‘A baby?’

  ‘I was fifteen. It was a mistake, of course. I gave her up for adoption.’

  Seb raked his fingers through his dark hair. ‘Jesus, Estelle.’

  ‘I know it’s a shock.’

  ‘A shock? That’s an understatement. This is huge.’

  ‘It’s in the past, Seb. I’m not that girl anymore.’

  ‘But people won’t see it like that. Your readers. The press. Our friends.’

  Estelle frowned, surprised by the venom in his voice. ‘Friends? If they’re true friends, they’d understand. I thought you’d understand. You do, don’t you?’ She looked into his eyes but he avoided her gaze.

  Great.

  ‘How’s this all connected with the police?’ Seb said. ‘And the photo you got?’ That was when she saw it dawn on him. ‘The runaway girl. Is she your …?’ Estelle nodded and his face paled. ‘This is even worse than I thought.’

  ‘You mustn’t tell anyone.’ She thought of Detective Jones’s plea for her not to tell anyone. But how could she continue withholding information from her own boyfriend? It wasn’t fair.

  ‘Too bloody right,’ he said. ‘This could be disastrous for us.’

  ‘Us? I’m more concerned about Poppy!’ Estelle said, biting her fingernails as she looked out of the window over London’s rooftops, imagining Poppy out there alone.

  ‘Concerned for the girl? You don’t know her!’ Seb exclaimed.

  Estelle looked back at him in shock. ‘She’s my daughter; I gave birth to her.’

  ‘Yeah but …’ He sighed. ‘Look, all I’m saying is if this gets out, especially this close to the launch of your book, it won’t look great. We’ve worked so hard for it.’

  ‘We? I wrote the book, Seb. And this isn’t about my image.’

  He laughed. ‘You think people would watch your YouTube videos if they knew you were once a pregnant teenager? It’s all about image, Estelle. Why do you think they offered you that six-figure deal in the first place? Image, image, image. Especially the fact you’re the girlfriend of an Olympic rower.’

  Estelle resisted the urge to slap him. ‘Oh, so it had nothing to do with my cooking and writing skills, did it?’

  He crossed his arms, looking her up and down. ‘Be realistic, Estelle, come on.’

  Estelle shook her head. That was the problem with Seb, he could be so shallow sometimes. But then he’d go and do something kind and true – like leave pink petals stuck to the wall leading to a gift in their bedroom. Or cook her (admittedly terrible) chicken soup when she was ill – and she’d forget how unfeeling he could sometimes be. But the petals and chicken soup were starting to wane, especially since he’d had to take a break from rowing. He seemed to be more and more reliant on her growing success – on her money too. She sometimes wondered if he truly loved her for who she was, or for what she was becoming: a published writer able to support him in the lifestyle he’d grown accustomed to.

  And this conversation was bringing that right home.

  Estelle sighed, standing up. ‘I’m going upstairs. Let’s talk again when we’ve both calmed down.’

  She went to walk past him but he grabbed her wrist, stopping her. ‘Don’t you dare let that kid ruin everything, Estelle. I can see it in your eyes. It’s got to you.’

  She yanked her wrist away. ‘That kid is my fucking daughter.’ Then she stormed out of the kitchen.

  ‘Let me guess,’ he called out after her. ‘You’re going to go up to your secret junk food stash to stuff your face like you always do when you’re stressed?’

  She paused, turning around to look at him. ‘Says the man who’s done nothing but drink since he got his injury?’

  His face exploded with anger. ‘Don’t play the holier than thou act with me, not you: the daughter of a junkie who got knocked up as a teenager just like her mother.’ Estelle looked at him, shocked. She’d only told him about her parents after he’d forced it out of her a few months ago, moaning she never talked about her past. Now he was using the information she’d been so desperate to keep to herself against her. He stood up, pointing his finger at her. ‘Clearly history likes to repeat itself with your family. Be careful, Estelle, or your dreams could come collapsing on top of your head like a pack of cards and you might well find yourself back in that scummy council estate you grew up in.’

  Estelle opened her mouth to retort but found she couldn’t. As Seb looked her up and down in disgust, she suddenly felt like that pregnant girl again, huddled in the corner of her room, the shame of her situation washing over her in dark ugly waves.

  ‘That was cruel,’ she finally said, finding her voice.

  A brief flicker of remorse showed in Seb’s eyes. But then his face hardened again. ‘I’m going to the pub,’ he hissed. Then he stormed out.

  Estelle took some deep breaths then she forced herself to walk upstairs, making her way to th
e bedroom and curling up on their bed, going over Seb’s cruel words in her head. Was he right? Could she find herself back to square one again because of all this, despite all her hard work?

  But that wasn’t what mattered now, even though the thought terrified her. All that really mattered was Poppy getting home safely.

  After a while, she found herself falling asleep. She dreamt she was standing outside a small room. Inside, Poppy was held captive with her hands bound, masking tape pressed over her lips, the walls around her shaking. Estelle banged desperately on the window but Poppy wouldn’t look at her. Then, as she watched, Poppy suddenly grew younger and younger until she was a newborn, her tiny body wrapped in masking tape, desperate eyes turned to look at Estelle, then the walls of the room started to crumble.

  Estelle woke to darkness, strangling a scream. She grappled for the light switch, turning it on as she calmed herself. Seb’s side of the bed was untouched. She looked at the time. Five in the morning. She’d slept that long? And was Seb still out? She checked her phone, no calls or messages from him. Then she checked for updates on Poppy, but nothing. She found the photo of the Polaroid she had on her phone, staring into her daughter’s eyes.

  Her daughter.

  Poppy was in danger; Estelle could feel it in her bones.

  She got up and grabbed an overnight bag, shoving as many items into it as she could fit, and slung it over her shoulder. Then she stepped out into the darkness of the hallway and walked down the stairs. She saw Seb asleep on the living room sofa. So he was back. She paused, watching him for a few moments. She realised she felt nothing. When she’d left Lillysands, her heart had ached for Aiden. It seemed to her as though that intensity of feeling had been there from the very first moment she’d seen him, the first afternoon she arrived in Lillysands eighteen years ago. He’d been scrunched up in a cave, tears falling down his face, his long blond hair dirty. He’d looked up at her with green eyes that were vivid against his tanned skin, holding her gaze as he continued to cry, and something had gone ‘pow’ in the core of her. She’d felt nothing like it since.

  As she watched Seb sleeping, she wondered if he was just another man in a succession of men who weren’t Aiden.

  She sighed and scribbled a note for him, sticking it to the fridge.

  Going away for a couple of days. Need some space. xx

  As she opened the door to step outside, something inside her told her she might be saying goodbye to this place forever. A look in Seb’s eyes the night before. The exasperation in her own voice. The writing had been on the wall for a while: arguments, not as much affection as there used to be. She looked around her. Could this really be goodbye?

  She’d learnt to leave places behind, to see them as simple, emotionless roofs over her head as a child in care. But as she thought of her kitchen, the pretty rooftop garden, she felt the grief, just as she had when she left Lillysands all those years before. She’d created that kitchen, that garden. They’d played a role in the making of her these past two years. And now she was turning her back of them, and had no idea what she was heading for.

  She stepped outside and closed the door, inhaling the early morning air. Then she strode to Waterloo Station. When she got there, she was quiet for a few moments, aware this was another pivotal moment in her life, another ending. There had been so many, one chapter to the next, another door closing. But she kept moving, kept running, because that’s all she knew.

  No more running. It was time she faced her realities.

  It was time she returned to Lillysands.

  Chapter Seven

  Thursday, 4 May

  Estelle stared out of the window as a taxi drove her through Lillysands four hours later. She felt tears flood her eyes, her tummy tingling with nerves. She hated this jumble sale of feelings: trepidation and excitement, sadness and giddiness. She hadn’t felt that in such a long time. The past few years had been plain sailing, very clear, no confusing emotions. But now everything seemed to be unravelling … including her relationship with Seb. The fact she’d barely thought of him during the long train journey suggested she’d made the right decision. She’d instead tried to focus on looking through a copy of her book to find quotes to read out at her upcoming launch party. But it was impossible, her mind filled with Poppy, Poppy, Poppy.

  And Aiden.

  She needed to tell him face to face about the child they’d conceived. It felt unimaginably cruel for him to hear it second-hand from the police.

  But this trip was more than that. She had a feeling all the answers to Poppy’s disappearance lay in Lillysands. The people who knew about Estelle giving birth all lived in Lillysands. Even her social worker hadn’t found out, she’d kept it so carefully concealed. But the information must have got out somehow and someone was using it against her. But why? And who? She didn’t have any enemies in Lillysands, not that she knew of anyway. But Lillysands was a strange place, close-knit and judgemental. She’d learnt that a long time ago.

  The air inside the taxi felt close and stale. She powered down the window.

  ‘You all right, love?’ the taxi driver asked, a local man with greying dark hair.

  ‘Fine, thanks, just breathing in the seaside air.’

  The air seemed to rush in at her a million miles an hour, bringing with it a montage of memories, like the first time she’d been driven to Lillysands by her social worker that freezing December day eighteen years ago. She hadn’t been delighted at the prospect of staying by the sea. The first seven years of her life had been spent in a grotty seaside town, sand in her sodden nappies, shoulders red raw from sunburn, the echo of screeching seagulls the backdrop to her stoned mother’s snoring. So the seaside just meant neglect and pain for her. But as her social worker’s car had rounded the corner and the whole town came into view, Estelle realised Lillysands was nothing like the rotting town of her childhood. Colourful houses dotted the cliff; sailboats gleamed under steel skies; people strolled by with smiles and expensive winter coats, faces pink from the cold sea breeze.

  ‘Lots of money here, Estelle,’ her social worker had explained. ‘Don’t mess things up, this place could be good for you.’

  ‘It’s Stel.’

  Her social worker rolled her eyes. ‘Alright, Stel. But listen, this is the best placement we’ve had for you, even better than the first one. So behave.’

  The first one. Her social worker always held that up as the holy grail, better than the care home and the other unsuccessful foster placements. But it hadn’t exactly been wonderful. A run-down house with a huge garden. Three dogs and two sneery teenage girls. And then Julie and Pete, friendly enough faces but clearly in desperate need of money. Even at seven, Estelle noticed the mounting bills and scuffed wallpaper; the overheard arguments between the couple about money, making it even more obvious. She’d been placed in a box room that had obviously been home to other kids like her, scrawled messages on the walls not very effectively hidden by carefully placed cushions. She remembered curling up on the bottom bunk bed that first night, yearning to be back home with her parents despite what they’d done to her. At least her filthy childhood flat was familiar. The new place seemed alien to her, scary with the angry teenagers and barking dogs. She was quickly removed from there a month in after the couple split up, and she ended up at a tiny house with an older couple who kept telling her to ‘talk for god’s sake, child’ when all she wanted to do was sleep and wait until she was back with her parents.

  After that followed a succession of foster homes, some stints in care homes. She preferred the care homes at times, bumping into familiar faces, a semblance of independence. Just before she went to live with the Garlands, she fell in with a bad crowd at the care home: skipping school, drinking, kissing boys, the sorts of things a twelve-year-old shouldn’t be doing. Something inside her stopped her going too far though: placing that bottle down when her head swam too much; pushing the boy away when his fingers reached inside her waistband. It was like standing on the preci
pice and knowing that even though what greeted her at the bottom could be sweet oblivion, it would also mean no coming back. And there was an urge inside her to come back, instilled ironically by her dad’s boasts about what he could have been if he hadn’t injured himself as a young footballer. Every week in care would begin with Estelle wanting – needing – to do better. Head down at school, reading, writing, baking – she particularly liked baking. But then something would happen. A girl shoving her. A boy telling her she was a skank. A woman passing her on the street who looked like her mum. A missed visit by her parents. And she’d be at square one again. Bunking off school, drinking. In the end, the pool of foster parents willing to put up with her narrowed, especially when she accused one of abusing her – a stupid lie to get her placed elsewhere. So the time she spent in care homes in-between being with foster parents began to increase, and started to look like a permanent prospect.

  The Garlands were her last chance. But she’d messed that up too in the end, falling pregnant too, giving her child up.

  And what of that child? Had Poppy run away to give herself a chance at something; at finding her birth parents and maybe herself in the process? Estelle felt a pinch of guilt. There had been times over the years she’d considered tracking down the newborn she’d given up. But she knew she wouldn’t be allowed to search for her daughter until the girl turned eighteen. She hadn’t even known her name, for Christ’s sake. Autumn and Max had said giving her daughter a name might make Estelle form an attachment to her. She’d agreed numbly, just as she had to everything that day – too weak, too traumatised from what had happened to argue.

  How naïve she’d been, to think something as simple as giving a name to a child was what caused attachment. Those first few months after, no matter how hard she’d tried to forget, it was a knowledge, a bond that curdled inside her. But time had made it fade. And while there were days, weeks, when her mind would be dominated by the baby she’d given away, she felt sure, even now, that she’d done the right thing. What sort of life could she have provided for the girl?